A place away from home

With my job keeping me away three days a week I do not get so much time to paint with all other stuff that needs doing once I get home. To remedy this I decided to set up a small painting station in my overnight apartment. This setup only has about half of the paint I normally use so I am restricted in what I can paint. It also has no real modeling capacity so I will need to bring pre-dissembled models with me that has been sprayed. So before setting this new station up I thought about what I could paint that did not require all my paints. The choice was between pre heresy dark angels as they are mostly black, but they also have some reds, greens and browns, the other was Blood letters and blood crushers. They are in principle red, but my paint scheme goes from black to yellow over red, so there are quite a few colors in there. In the end I settled for the Blood letters.So I built the remaining ones I had but I also got some skull crushers that I converted into marines riding juggernauts.

One I had every thing in place I started out painting some blood letters, and I must say, frosting is the bane of drybrushing. Not only had I bought new paints I also bought new brushes, and I must say, GW brushes are not good. Well the fist models got a lot of frosting as I had not gotten used to the new brushes and how they deposited colors. In the pic with the sword arms one can see the progress top to bottom. Well I have been painting away and I am getting better. The models are still in peaces as I do not have any glue. It is also easier to transport them like this so I will probably only paint the parts here and then assemble them once I get home. Also the lighting is not to good and I am using my phone to take pictures... so all in all, it is a place away form home but it is not home.

Fallen Dark Angel terminator captain and heavy weapon Grey knight

The other day I just played around with some unused Grey Knight and Death wing models. I got the idea to make a Fallen Dark angel captain using one of the great sword from the Grey knight kit. I also gave him a cloak of "power sensors" from the knight flails. Once I had done that I got the idea to stick the plasma canon from the Death wing set onto a grey knight with one of the special weapons from that kit. I have no idea if Grey Knights actually can have heavy weapons, but I doubt it as there are no normal heavy weapons on the sprues. Well I made one any way. For some reason I decided to give him a short sword in the other hand as well as the flamer type weapon...  I think it looked better in my head then in reality.

Well I did some painting. The Fallen dark angel turned out a bit grey, not as black as the rest of them but I think I will leave him lake this. I could try to add some more black was or some black in but the risk is that I will have to re do the armour if I fail and I do not want to repaint the rest of the model as it took me two nights to paint.
In contrast to this the grey knight only took two to three hours to do. Apart from the slightly funky build it turned out ok.

Armies of Agis

Today I decided that it was once again time to "base" the models I have painted so far. As you might have realised so far I am not a great fan of bases, they are a necessary evil to keep the models standing but nothing to spend to much time on. I do think the models look better with a finished base, but in my opinion, it should be as neutral as possible but still go with the flow of the army. That being said, I am no big fan of scenic bases where the base in it self is more intricate than the model, and the notion, of the model constantly dragging a ruined building around with it just do not make sense to me. So in the spirit of simplicity I decided to cover the basic black bases with some gravel just to hide the plastic but not to steal attention from the model. I realised that I probably had not done this in the last 3-4 years so there were quite a lot of models that needed this treatment, and I still have some flying bases left to do... . Once I had removed al the models that needed gravel around their feet, from the cabinets I realised that there where not that many models left on the shelves. So I decided to pull the rest of the models out and make a group shot of each army I am currently painting models for. I do have a Dark Angels, Space Wolves and Astra Militarum (Imperial guard) army also, but these are mostly leftovers from my gaming days and are armies I do not actively paint models for.
Instead I realised I had some new "armies" that I actually have not played at al or at least to a very limited extent and hence their unbound character, or complete disregard for FOC or other rules regulating composition and weapon combinations (It is al down to dynamic posing and cool individual models).
What I have is a Mechanicum force to go with my Knights and Titans (not in the shot). This "army" consists of two units of Scitarii, a combat robot (probably similar to a catellax) and some misc Mechanicum personel. These where conceived and built from other GW kits before Forge World released any Mechanicum troops. There are also a Myrmidon combat walker (the name Myrmidon is now used for some other Mechanicum troops, but they have always been myrmidons to me). There is also a two legged walker, very similar to some sort of dino raptor. This is a model I built just as a test. The idea was to build two more but I have abandoned that as I do not think it follows the aesthetics of the rest of the army. I think my next large investment into the hobby will be some proper Mechanicum troops from Forge World, I will just see when the funds become available and how much of what I already have is still unpainted at the time.
Then we have the Fallen/Pre Heresy Dark angels. These are basically the Dark vengeance box painted as all black canopy Dark Angels. I also attached a hell drake and a Forge/Mauler/Fiend that really did not have a solid attachment but looked good with the rest of the models, and they do share a shelf in the cabinet. This is an army that I am staring to like more and more, so there will defiantly be some more additions. I do have some more assault marines with jump packs to bring them up to a full 10 man squad. There is also another terminator with lightning claws that will eventually be brought up to a full 5 man unit. I think they also need some more tactical marines, as the ones from the Dark Vengeance box look a little bit to static. Then of course I would like some vehicles etc but we will have to see what happens. Fw might also release some nice 30k stuff for the Dark Angels.
Then there is also a Khorne force, consisting of a Lord of Skulls, a defiler and some berserker. I have recently added some demonic support in the from of Blood crushers and some Blood Letters. This army will get the rest of the Blood letters painted to fill the 10 man squad. Then I would like to make some Berserkers on blood crushers even though I do not believe that such troops are available in game any more (if they ever where). Then I will make a Daemon Prince on a hell drake and perhaps the Hell Lord also joins them in the future. This "army" will probably never be a self consistent army in its own right but it is fun to paint when I need another colour scheme or I wish to build some kit bash monster.
The Space Wolves are in principle part of my old Space Wolves army, but since their colour scheme is quite different I present them as a separate entry. I would not even say that they are an army that I am actively painting models for but since they represent both Wolf Guards in power and Terminator armour, some Grey hunters and Blood Claws and two ICs they are at least the embryo of something.

Last but not least we have the Desert Eagles, who are sort of the trash-bin of my painting, if I want to paint a model and I have no real army for it, or if I feel like building something that is not according to rules or I just want to relax with a very basic painting scheme the chance is that it will be a Desert Eagle. There are tonnes of stuff I would like to paint for this army and like their back story, there is no telling what they will find next in the large underground stash that they where set to guard.

Well, these are the main "armies" I am painting models for at the moment but there are other contributions as well that does not necessarily end up as Desert Eagles, such as the Grey Knights and some other models not portrayed here. My main interest are building, converting and painting... and sometimes dreaming about playing, so chances are that if some new cool mini (imperial or imperial derived) shows up it might get painted any way.

Space Wolves, again

Once again I feel the pull of the Space Wolves. It was the first army I painted some 20 years ago and I have always liked them due to their individuality and opportunities for making interesting models. Now with the release of the Space Wolves Codex I once again feel an urge to paint some Wolves. A few years ago I bought some Grey hunters/blood claws/ Wolf guards and some Wolfe Guard Terminators.

For some reason I did paint al but one Terminator all those years ago. I tried to go for a darker and more grim look  than your standard blue grey, but I was not really happy with them. I think I made them to dark and it is hard to see the details of the model. So I thought that I would have a go and test a new lighter scheme with the last remaining Terminator. I started with Fenrisian Grey as a base instead of The Fang, and it looked promising. During the dry brush stage I brought the colour almost up to white and I almost worried that they would look more white then Blue grey. But as I started to paint in al the details the model mysteriously turned darker and darker. In the end it ended up almost the same colour that I had before... ? I am still not happy with the recipe, I think that there is not enough contrast between the raised areas and the recesses. So I am still not sure that I would like to invest the time, money and effort of starting a new Space Wolves army until I have a killer colour scheme going. Might have to get me some more basic troop and practise on though.
Well, we will see. There are so many models I would like to paint and starting a new army is probably not the best idea.

Opus Update; broad side

Just a short update on the progress of the Opus Magna. To get the sides of the hull ready for plaster and detailing I need to add the weapon sponsons for the broad sides. In total there will be 18 mounts, 10 for the main lance batteries and 8 for close defence. The lace batteries consists of 10 quad linked "plasma lances" counts as lascannons or something similar. The other 8 points carries hurricane bolter arrays, in total there are 96 bolters, the equivalent of an entire marine company. Appart from this there are also 12 heavy bolters mounted in the hull itself.

This is only the weapons mounted in the hull below the flight deck, there will be more guns in the tower and around the battlements.

Now I just need to drill out the barrels of some 84 bolters...

Marine Talon prototype done

 So, I finished the prototype. For the real versions I will make some changes in how I build this type of pattern for the Strom Talon and in the colour scheme. I am not really sure about the placement of the wings but with the weapon pods painted in a distinctly different colour than the fuselage the wings pop a bit more then other wise. From a aerodynamic point of view they will not give much lift but then again, the empire does not care about such minor things as aerodynamics when it comes to designing aircraft. I will also make some adjustments to the tail plane so that the hinges are on the top side where they can be seen. I am also thinking about shortening the engines as the are a bit over dimensioned in this build. It would have been nice to have some larger folding wings but I think this will do. It is more of a close support aircraft like an attack helicopter any way, and I will use the Nephilim fighter as a more conventional large wing air supremacy fighter. As it is the Opus can hold 6 to 10 of these air crafts in the hold. The larger aircraft will have to be stacked on the deck unless I can make them fold up enough to fit in to the elevators. Forge World also has some nice fighters but I am not sure about the size and weight of these. They might also be more difficult to adapt to a "Marine" version. In the end I might just stick to plastics as it much easier to work with. Well now it is only the pilot that is not done but I think I will wait a bit with that. I will probably also have to do a Nephilim prototype at some point just to see how large it is compare to the Marine Talon and the Opus. Well, now I just need to make some progress with the Opus build itself so I have some place to put the fliers.

Marine Talon; update

As I was not happy with the way the Marine Talon turned out I let it rest for a few days to see if I could come up with some thing to make it look a little better. So to day I just painted the blue grey areas black and trimmed them with a yellow border. This is not what I would call a discreet paint job... but it does lock better. I think the problem with the old paint job was that I did add the different coloured areas but with out the contrast it looked bad. In the end I am not sure if the flight wings will have something like this or if they will be a more uniform grey. I would also have like the base colour to a bit lighter so I will test another recipe for the missile pods to see if I can get them a bit lighter than the current grey.